


Heartbreaker of Hogwarts

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: One Shot, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-09
Updated: 2007-07-09
Packaged: 2019-01-19 15:02:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12412566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: What was dear old Padfoot like in school?  A little mean, a little mischievous, and a whole lot of gorgeous.  And maybe a tad arrogant.





	Heartbreaker of Hogwarts

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

I looked around the Great Hall, decorated and festooned to maximum capacity; with rainbow streamers snaking along in the air; with huge, shiny balloons bobbing up and down. The sheen of girls' dresses added to the glamour of the whole scene.

My own straggly brown-blonde hair was pulled up in a clumsy knot, and I had on a simple, hand sewn dress. It was made of a shiny, silky mint-green fabric, and hung delicately on my shoulders with slim straps.

Giggly laughter and the sound of dancing feet filled the hall; everyone seemed to be enjoying their last night at the magical school. A medium sized symphony sat in one corner of the room, giving out waltzes and other music.

I sighed as I read the banner that hung behind the staff table: _Congratulations 7th Years of 1976_ Seven long, long years of magic and drama, of heartbreak and education, of quidditch and studying, of everything Hogwarts had to offer. 

Well, not everything. Not total happiness.

I played with my small orchid corsage and held on to the door frame, as if for support. Jacob Davies, the star Ravenclaw quidditch player, and my date, was chatting with his friends. He hadn't been the one I'd wanted to come to the ball with, though.

_This is it_ , I thought. _I'll never be back here again._

Turning to go, I caught Remus Lupin's eye. He'd always been such an empathetic, nice guy to me. He and his date, a modest little brunette, looked perfectly happy.

"Where are you going?" He mouthed through the loud music, adjusting his dress robes.

I smiled and jerked my thumb towards the Entrance Hall. "I'm leaving," I mouthed back, trying to hide the lone tear that was traveling down my cheek. _Why was everyone happy except me?_

Turning, I retreated in my high-heeled shoes down the hall and up to the Hufflepuff wing, my home for nearly three-quarters of a decade. Levitating my already-packed trunk down the stairs, I grabbed my black cloak and fastened it on.

It was raining outside, and I stared wistfully at the clock, hoping my carriage would not be late. I had received special permission from Dumbledore to leave the school early. He always had understood me as well.

My feet were aching by that time, so I took off my silver shoes that I had saved knut by knut for and welcomed the coldness of the marble tiles. 

A shadow stepped out from the Great Hall and came into view. I sucked in my breath. I hadn't planned on running into _him_.

"Sirius? What are you doing here?" I whispered, straightening my cloak's hood. "Shouldn't you be at the graduation ball?"

His dark dress robes brought out his warm gray eyes, and his ebony hair was barely tamed. "Leaving so soon, Sophie Martin?" Sirius asked, stepping closer to me.

My carefully mascara-ed eyes watered a little, and I clenched my fists inside my cloak.

"You know I have to. I'm due in France in a few hours."

Sirius walked with that haughty air of his, but there was no smirk on his face tonight. The gray eyes I'd fallen head over heels with were especially beautiful and danced with a sort of regret.

"France?" he repeated. His robes hung three inches from his ankle. I almost laughed. He'd grown so much this year.

"Yes. To get away," I said stiffly, avoiding eye contact. Deep, bitter sorrow welled up in my throat.

"From what?" Sirius took another step closer to me and I could smell his sweet, cedar-y scent. 

_Leave me alone. Go back to the ball, and we can pretend we never met. That you never smashed my heart apart a million times, over and over. Leave and we can forget. Please,_ I silently begged.

"From what?" he repeated, bringing my hand up to his mouth and gently kissing it.

I hesitated. "This."

His black hair fell into his eyes a little. Sirius looked so handsome. I don't think he had come with a date to the ball.

"Can't we talk?" He asked, a little more quieter. "About this? About us?"

The tears I'd been so desperately holding back came rushing out. I bit my lip. "Talk? _Talk_?!?" I repeated, slightly bitter. "I've been waiting 7 years to talk! 7 years, Sirius! I gave you my heart for 7 years, and not once did you ever give me yours!"

He gently took one of my shaking hands into his own, rubbing his thumb in small circles on my skin. "I know," he whispered.

I wanted him to leave so he wouldn't hear me lash out with my bottled up temper, and yet I wanted him to stay and here what I had wanted to tell him for a long time.

Sirius stayed, and I wasn't finished. Gods, I had just begun. 

I remembered the first time I'd set eyes on the boy in front of me. Laughing with his friends, he'd just gotten out of the first year boat and started to climb the stairs, when we bumped into each other. Me, I'd been too shy to look up, and he'd been to preoccupied to watch where he had been going either.

I'd savored the image of his casually elegant black hair, his brilliant smile, and his always shining eyes. I loved his loyalty to his companions, and his fierce bravery that had landed him in Gryffindor in the first place.

And I'd loved him desperately ever since he looked straight into my eyes and grinned.

"In first year, you wouldn't even look at me, or talk to me! Not even when I told you how I loved you! You said we were too young." I sobbed slightly, not caring how my make-up looked. 

"We were! We were only 11!" Sirius fired back, then recoiled at his tone. He looked thoroughly embarrassed.

It seemed as if there was a giant bucket of water swaying dangerously inside me, threatening to pour out.

Music from the Great Hall resounded in the Entrance Hall eerily, and the tall wizard shuffled his feet slightly and raked his hands through his long hair---a habit I had grown accustomed to.

"In second year, you said you just wanted to be friends! I was so. . . so stupid, that I thought it was a first step to the relationship I wanted. So I was friends with you. And James. And Remus. They've always been so nice to me. They understood what it was like!"

"Remus and James _have_ been good mates," Sirius said, half to himself and half to me.

"The older girls in Gryffindor and Hufflepuff . . they said that you'd never fall in love. That you had broken a million hearts without a care in the world. I didn't believe them. I thought I could change you."

Images of a small, 12-year-old Sirius flashed through my mind, always side by side with James, and Remus in the edge of the picture. Then there was me, with my long, tangly hair tied up in pigtails, running after the dark-haired pureblood with her Hufflepuff robes flapping behind.

The boys would stop, probably because Remus felt sorry for me, and I'd catch up and shyly say hello to Sirius. He'd scoff and act conceited, and James would tease us. Then the boys would walk away again, and I'd be left, confused but still in love.

"I loved you so much, Sirius. I wanted so much for you to understand, and for you to return those feelings. But you never did."

"Sophie. . . I can make it right. . . " His eyes pleaded with me, and he carefully laced his fingers around mine. "Please----"

"Don't interrupt me Sirius Black!" I half-screamed, tears running down my face. The giant bucket had tipped, and I felt drenched with my own tears.

"Third and Fourth year, we went on two dates, only because I'd worked up enough courage after months to ask you! I was so happy when you actually said yes!" I wiped my nose on my cloak. "Then you didn't want to go anywhere with me anymore! You said that you still thought we were too young!"

"but---"

"Fifth year. . . oh Sirius, you wouldn't talk to me again! Do you know what I had to go through, each day? Do you know that I even turned went on a date with Amos Diggory, just to make you jealous? Have you got any idea what a boring prat he is? He was good looking. . . yes. . . but gods, all he wanted to talk about was politics!"

That had been one of the most horrible days of my life at Hogsmeade. Two years older than I was, Amos had the sort of voice that droned on the same pitch, even after two hours. And I didn't think Sirius ever noticed about me and Amos.

The 18-year-old stared at the ground, pink patches on his cheeks. "Damn Diggory," he muttered.

"Sixth year. . . when James and Lily just _started_ to like each other, you don't know how that made me feel! I wanted to be like Lily. I wanted to be able to giggle when you would give me a special wink or rave on and on to my girl friends about the last time we talked! 

"But you know what? I never had the chance to!" I shrieked hysterically. "Because you still wanted to be just friends! You wanted to set off dungbombs in the hallway rather than study together! You wanted to run off with James and Peter and Remus every month instead of passing notes during class!"

"I was stupid, okay?" Sirius yelled. "I didn't know any better! I hardly knew anything about stuff. . . like this."

I sat down on my trunk, crying openly into my cloak. It was a terrible, terrible shame how I had wasted my older childhood.

"This year! This year, I thought maybe, just maybe you were ready. Ready to be my one and only, ready to finally accept me as a real girl! Not another friend! And we did! You don't know what state of euphoria I was in, Sirius, when you asked me out! I thought nothing could touch us. The world could have blown up, and I wouldn't have cared."

At that moment, James and Lily wandered into the Great Hall, talking excitedly. Spotting me and Sirius, they froze. James swore under his breath.

"Do you mind?" Sirius spat impatiently.

"Sorry mates," Lily muttered, dragging James out back into the Great Hall.

I sniffed again and pointed in the direction where the couple had disappeared. "I wanted what they have! I wanted to go on moonlit broomstick rides, and have the best life in the world. I thought I'd suffered enough. 

"But when we went on dates, you were never into it! You didn't act the way James does when Lily's around, and that was what I wanted!

"Maybe I was wrong to expect that of you. You're not James, who fawns over Lily and practically kisses the ground she walks on. You're not Remus, who treats girls like equals. You were Sirius Black. Sirius Black, the heartbreaker of Hogwarts."

I checked the clock and took a shuddery breath.

"then you broke up with me, because you said you weren't ready for commitment. By the gods, Sirius! You're 18!" I took a deep, shuddery breath. "I realized what a fool I had been, always adoring you, believing that you actually cared for me."

"I do care for you," he said in a low voice.

"No you don't! Not in the way that I wanted! From then on, I knew that you'd never be mine. So I decided that I would quit annoying you. Quit bugging you and pestering you like an idiot gnat. I signed up at Gringotts to work in another country. I had to get away. There are too many memories here," I sobbed, clutching Sirius's hand like a life line.

"You can't leave," Sirius said, his gray eyes shining.

"why not Sirius Black? Give me one damn good reason why I should stay here, and continue to let you walk all over me. You were never ready. You never wanted to be ready. And all the while, I was just waiting." I wiped my eyes. "A girl can only wait for so long, Sirius! I'm through waiting. I want more than that."

Sirius took my hands and pulled my sobbing self towards him, crowding my arms into his chest. Without the slightest bit of hesitation, he leaned towards me and paired those beautiful, angel-like lips with mine.

I wanted so much to fall into him and listen to him tell me that we'd work it out, that I could fall in love with him again, that we'd live happily ever after. But the other side of me knew that Sirius Black had broken my heart too many times. 

After half of a blissful minute, I tore away, still sobbing slightly. 

"Can't you wait?" he implored, looking into my eyes, and still holding one of my hands. "I can make it right. Just give me time."

Bitter anger rolled up in my chest and unfurled.

"Isn't seven years enough?" I yelled. "Seven long, horrible years of hell? I told you, Sirius. Waiting for you is like. . . waiting for us Hufflepuff to win the quidditch cup! Useless, and heartbreakingly disappointing."

I used my wand to levitate my trunk up and walked out the main doors and onto the steps in the rain. Sirius came out, staying on the top step. 

"I was scared, Sophie! You've got to understand," Sirius cried. "Do you know what my life was like at home? I had grown up thinking that love was a painful thing. Look what happened to me and my parents! I thought families were supposed to love one another. I didn't trust the word "love"!"

"Millions of times, I tried to give you my heart. And every single ruddy time, you took it and smashed it to pieces. You never tried, Sirius Black! Anything that didn't have a catch for you wasn't worth pursuing, in your world!" I said shakily, my whole body soaked in the freezing rain.

"I didn't know how much you loved me," he said. "I thought it was a game!"

"Everything was a game, wasn't it Sirius? Tormenting Snape? Weaseling your way around the rules? Going with Moony and Prongs and Wormtail on the grounds at night? It was all a game, huh?"

"That's not fair," he pleaded, his eyes begging for forgiveness.

"Yes it is, Sirius. I gave you seven years. I think that's enough of my life wasted," I answered bitterly. 

"But I. . . . love you, Sophie!" He called as I was taking another step with my bare, cold feet. The rain tamed his black locks more than any sort of hair gel could.

I looked back for half a second, and shook my head grievously. Getting into the warm, dry carriage, I looked out at the tall, lithe figure outside in the pouring rain. 

Then, half to myself and half to Sirius, I whispered, "I guess it wasn't enough."  



End file.
